UrbanDiary - a tracking project

This working paper investigates aspects of time in an urban environment, specifically the cycles and routines of everyday life in the city. As part of the UrbanDiary project (urbantick.blogspot.com), we explore a preliminary study to trace citizen’s spatial habits in individual movement utilising GPS devices with the aim of capturing the beat and rhythm of the city. The data collected includes time and location, to visualise individual activity, along with a series of personal statements on how individuals “use” and experience the city. In this paper, the intent is to explore the context of the UrbanDiary project as well as examine the methodology and technical aspects of tracking with a focus on the comparison of different visualisation techniques. We conclude with a visualisation of the collected data, specifically where the aspect of time is developed and explored so that we might outline a new approach to visualising the city in the sense of a collective, constantly renewed space

New city l andscapes: tracking location based social networks using twitter data

Peer Reviewe

The Depth and Breadth of Google Scholar: An Empirical Study

The introduction of Google Scholar in November 2004 was accompanied by fanfare, skepticism, and numerous questions about the scope and coverage of this database. Nearly one year after its inception, many of these questions remain unanswered. This study compares the contents of 47 different databases with that of Google Scholar. Included in this investigation are tests for Google Scholar publication date and publication language bias, as well as a study of upload frequency. Tests show Google Scholar’s current strengths to be coverage of science and medical databases, open access databases, and single publisher databases. Current weaknesses include lack of coverage of social science and humanities databases and an English language bias

An Education About Education Data: Embedded Librarians, Education Students, and a Data Odyssey

Agenda • Instructor’s goals for the course & How did this collaboration get started? • First session -introduction to advanced Google searching, Google Scholar, ERIC • Subsequent research days focused on: locating local data state and district level data for Iowa locating national and state-by-state level data locating relevant research articles allowing for failure (what if our topic doesn’t work?) lots of consulting with librarian and primary professor throughout • Consulting with other experts (on campus and off) • Takeaway

Urban Rhythms: Habitus and emergent spatio-temporal dimensions of the city

This thesis focuses on the creation of space as an activity. The argu¬ment draws not only on aspects of movement in time, but also on a cultural and specifically social context influencing the creation of the spatial habitus. The aim of this thesis is to reconsider existing theories of time and space in the field of urban planning and design and develop an updated account of spatial activity, experience and space-making based on time. Recent developments in spatial practice, specifi¬cally those related to the development and widespread use of new technologies such as hand-held devices, make this an important and timely task. Integrating spatial-temporal dynamics into the way we think about cities will aid the implementation of sustainable forms of urban planning and design by activating the individual urban context. Repetition and pattern are properties of such a time-based ur¬ban environment. These properties result from activities guided according to time windows. For instance, we all experience the syn¬chronised and collective activities of the morning or evening rush hour, the lunchtime run to the restaurant, or a walk in the park on a Sunday. This orchestration of thousands of fellow urban dwellers is a time-related and spatial phenomenon. Urban habitus, or these types of everyday repetitive cycles of activity, is interpreted in this thesis as the factor linking the social and spatial organisation of the urban environment. While such patterns have been understood to be an important factor for understanding urban existence, there have been few ef¬fective methods for activating such patterns at both the larger scale and the scale of the individual. This thesis develops an innovative methodology for the description of spatial narratives in the context of urban living. This telescoping methodology, moving between the general patterns of the macro-scale and the lived-experience at the micro-scale, is developed in tandem with a re-conceptualisation of the city in time and space. The study is composed of two parts using two different cases. The first case is based on fieldwork tracking individual movement and the spatial extension of everyday routines. GPS technology is deployed, together with interviews and mental maps as the main method of investigation into spatial experience, the creation of per¬sonal space, and the orientation and organisation of spatial practice. The second case utilises online social networking data mined from the micro-blogging platform Twitter. The data of thousands of users is analysed regarding temporal patterns across urban areas. This method is used as a complementary investigation of urban tempo-rality on the level of the collective. Along the shifting locations and moving patterns of activity, the temporal morphology of an urban centre, a city, is visualised, thus revealing the constitution of urban space as a product of the collective. One of the key elements in the conclusion to this thesis is the definition of temporality as a status rather than a transition. This proposition deviates from the usual approach of merging time and space as time-space, whilst preserving both spatial and temporal qualities. Temporality is defined as the dimension of activity that has its own comprehensiveness involving time and space. It is no longer just something ephemeral or fleeting. Nor is it simply a Kantian container for activity. Through repetitive practices, time has presence and agency in our everyday lives. KEYWORDS: time, space, rhythm, cycle, temporality, habitus, urban, city, GPS tracking, social networks, Twitter dat

Chern-Simons term in the 4-dimensional SU(2) Higgs Model

Using Seiberg's definition for the geometric charge in SU(2) lattice gauge theory, we have managed to apply it also to the Chern-Simons term. We checked the periodic structure and determined the Chern-Simons density on small lattices $L^4$ and $L^3 \times 2,\, 4$ with L=4,\, 6,\mbox{ and }8 near the critical region in the SU(2) Higgs model. The data indicate that tunneling is increased at high temperature.Comment: 7 pages plus 4 PS figure

Gene Expression, Structure Elucidation, and Bioactivity of Aspergillus Natural Products

The study of natural products (NPs) and their application has shaped humanity. Starting with the idea of using plants as medicine, it has now grown into the science of purifying and identifying organic molecules from nature to study their inherent biological activities. Understanding the molecular structures of NPs is the first critical step in their application. Along with many organisms, fungi have a record of producing a multitude of small organic molecules that have impacted society. The ubiquitous genus Aspergillus is known to taint crops with mycotoxins but is also able to produce the lifesaving cholesterol lowering statins. In this thesis, known and new NPs from Aspergillus were studied. The research is set out over three chapters. Chapter two utilizes LCMS-based metabolomics and RNA sequencing to explore the differential regulation of NPs in Aspergillus nidulans spores. Mutant strains that lack transcription factors critical for conidiation exhibited greatly varied NP production, which may indicate a specific function for NPs in sporulation and fungal development. Chapter three focuses on the discovery and structure elucidation of five new drimane sesquiterpenes from Aspergillus ustus. Following bioactivity-guided fractionation, antibiotic synergism was found between the newly discovered metabolite named ustusoic acid B (3.5) and stromemycin (3.6). Chapter four highlights the structure elucidation of four new polyketides from Aspergillus porosus. Here, the absolute configuration of these flexible polyketides was supported by guiding the DFT-based conformational search with experimental parameters. Together, this thesis explores both the function and application of fungal NPs and introduces newly discovered metabolites, from their structure determination to their bioactivity